Studio 1

Studio 1

Cultured Landscape; Gleisdreieck, Berlin

Studio 1 has worked on Yorckstrasse in Berlin, in the former railway landscape of Gleisdreieck; a plateau of quiet wilderness in the midst of the dense tenement extension of the 1880's Hobrecht plan. Untouched for years, the place is strange and magic, almost too good to be altered. Most students were drawn to the edges, investigating the delicate threshold between city and landscape.

Program wasn't immediately defined; ideas on place - urban and wild, civility and character guided us. In the end production became the theme for both proposed interiors and external landscape interventions. Proposed strategies seek to define these edges, with buildings that straddle the threshold between city and wilderness. A critical approach to the designated urban park, instead productive landscapes were proposed, providing a didactic experience of circular urban metabolism; producing resources and receiving waste.

The main project begun with a suite of shorter non-linear exercises to propose our architectural components; A Room With no Ceiling, Shared Hall, Landscape Narrative, Building Ensemble and Deep Wall, brought together in the final project. The specifically non-linear structure of the year's briefs aimed to raise awareness of each 'stage' of designing. We have continued to work extensively with models, as design tools as well as representational media; site models at different scales to test urban design, interior models that explore light qualities and expressive character.